Tag: The best places to visit in Romania

Having part of a sunny weekend I have decided to go with my parents to visit the salt mine in Turda. I have been there before and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to go again. One thing you need to know about this trip is the fact that the mine is more than 200m deep and my parents as well as my brother are afraid of heights. I slightly described them the mine and the fact that is somewhat underground. My dad got panicked about it right away and it took me quite some time to convince my brother to come too.

Eventually the 4 of us, my mom, brother and his wife hit the road and drove to Salina Turda. Everything went smoothly until we got to the stairs down to the mine where my brother and mom freaked out from the depth of the mine. I was crazy enough to walk them through above the salt mine to the other end of it where we decent on the stairs.

Once we got to the base of the mine, my brother realize that there was a 2nd staircase where he could have avoided walking through the entire mine. I quote – he said he almost shit himself and instantly got sweat form the entire salt mine experience. My mom also said she will never return to this place again.

I still love the place and I think is a must visit if anyone is near Cluj Napoca. We went deep down to the deepest point of the mine, to the lake where we had the option to go with the boat, but we skipped it for obvious reasons.

For me it was a really funny experience and it was a good feeling to spend some good time with my family.

Here is a short clip of the experience catching some of the moment when my brother was panicking and refused to go down into the mine. Enjoy!

I am back on track with my travel stories and journeys after a good break from the never ending winter. I really enjoyed the winter time, visited some cool places and learned new things. That’s being said I was really looking forward for the spring and the good weather so I can go out and explore Romania’s stunning landscapes.

I have started my journey in going to the summit of mount Vladeasa which is at an altitude of 1836m and I am planning to explore the Apuseni mountains further on. Later on in my journey I would love to visit the Rodnei Mountains and 2 trips in the Alps in Italy and Slovenia.

The trail to the Vladeasa summit started from Rogojel a village at the base of the mountain at an altitude of 800m and a 10km journey till the summit. While I was driving to Rogojel from Zalau I stopped by at a medieval fortress based in Bologa. Unfortunately it’s not looked after and not in great conditions, however it is a really cool place to visit.

Walking towards the peak, step by step beautiful landscapes where pupping up in my path. Sometimes we are too focused on the objective and forget to enjoy the journey, so I did sit down in various places and take in all the goodness the nature has to offer.

The highest you get in your ascent the more difficult it gets, but there is no rush, it’s more about the journey as I previously said. I did met some great people on the way, close to the top I bumped into Ildiko Mihaly, a solo traveler and mountaineer from Targu Mures who was stepping into my footsteps in the snow and walked together to the summit while getting to know each other.

We set down to enjoy the view and take a breath to recover our strength for the descent. By the way there was a cat on the top of the mountain and it still bothers me, wondering how did it get there? 🙂

Ildiko decided to go to the other end of the summit to check out the place and it turned out the sign with the summit was there so she did touch the real deal where I didn’t. However both places where at the same altitude and relatively same place.

I have started the descent as fast as possible, but my knees where failing slowly and the big snow didn’t made my journey easier. Half way through at the Vladeas Cabin I came across Ildiko once again and she kindly offered me a ride back to the village from where I started my ascent. Thank you ever so much for this, you did me a great favorite and I owe you big times.

I quickly changed into dry clothes and drove back home after a long, but strong day.

As I mentioned few times back, I have set myself some crazy goals for this year out of which so far I have done the following: